Senate Hearing Touches on Importance of the Housing Credit and NMTC for Native American Communities

During a recent Senate Indian Affairs Committee Hearing on “Building tribal Economies: Modernizing Tax Policies that work for Indian Country,” Senators from both sides of the aisle expressed support for provisions of the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act (S. 548) that would facilitate the development of affordable housing in Native American communities. The Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Senate Finance Committee Orrin Hatch (R-UT), contains several provisions to strengthen and streamline the Housing Credit’s ability to finance affordable housing on Indian lands, including automatically qualifying developments on Indian lands as eligible for up to 30 percent additional Housing Credit equity and specifying Native American housing as a selection criteria in all state applications. See the ACTION Campaign fact sheet on the Housing Credit’s impact on Native American communities for more information. Chairman John Hoeven (R-ND), Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) also recently introduced a bill, known as the Tribal Economic Assistance Act (S. 2012; The TEA Act), which would require a new priority under the NMTC for qualified low-income community investments on Indian reservations.